EA Hockey - original and best?

[jnm23]

Revisited this (and it's subsequent updates) via kgens. Brilliant.
I have to say I prefer the first instalment! It's quicker, smoother and you can score with ridiculous shots from the half way line. Maybe a bit easy, but great fun.

NHL '93 is also good, after that I think the series goes downhill, each update getting slower and jerkier as they tried to cram more stuff in.

Had a browse on google - seems like '94 is generally regarded as the best version. What do you people think of the series, and the subsequent 32bit / 128 bit versions?

[danholo]

I played '94 for the SNES till I dropped. You could score so easily in that game. Right-left, shoot -> Goal. Every. Single. Time. I never owned '95 but it was as easy and I think a little better since it was "updated" and you could create your own players. But, in the end, '94 is definitely the best one IMO. For some reason, the versions for the PC and Genesis were much more difficult. No cheap shots there.

Ever since, I was never into sports games and revisited EA's NHL titles only in 2000. I played that like a madman as well.

[vertigo]

Loved the one that came on the cartridge with John Madden, top quality, two American sports titles that I otherwise couldn't have cared less about (until channel 5 started showing them late at night which was much later on) and I enjoyed playing them both.

[Jashin]

Not being pedantic here, but Channel 4 showed American Football through the 1980's - it's when I first got into the game. I agree that the MD originals slid in quality with each release, but they're all overshadowed by the PS2 versions.

[vertigo]

Yeh but I didn't care about them until I found an excuse to stay up late

Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey on the N64 was fun but you could barely see what was going on. EA Hockey = still the best.

[Oh_Mutants]

EA Hockey is still great, especially played on co-op or even better portably via the GP32. Whilst the vast majority of updates have lowered the quality with pretty much every release, the game that bucks this trend big time is the latest one NHL 2006 (I have it on xbox) If you've tuned out since the MD games, i totally recommend giving this one a go

[SharkAttack]

Awww man! I miss the early 90s. Friday night as a 12/13 year old. Out came the Toffee Microwave popcorn and a game of NHL Hockey 93 before setting down to watch Terminator 2 premier on Sky Movies Gaming did kind of seem better then.

[captain binman]

99 is one of my favourites because you could check the ref through the glass.Brilliant!.
I can't remember which one on the megadrive had the players go 'a-hoor-ah' but that was great aswell.
also 2002 has some of the funniest commentry ever and it just made the game for me.

[Leon Retro]

I remember when one of my mates got the orginal for his MD. We didn't expect it to be a great game, but it turned-out to be excellent, and very very addictive!

[Mu5]

The Mega-CD version was the last good version I can remember playing

[Team Andromeda]

The Mega-CD version was the last good version I can remember playing

Me too.

94 onthe Mega CD was bloody awesome (still play it today, that CD quality organ music samples make all the diff (Really help build the atmosphere) Hell even the full screen intro was great .
I also loved 92 on the MD for the fights and the blood effects .
Still today the best Hockey games ever made , that?s not including he totally inferior Snes ports

[Mu5]

That was the version that supported the 4-player adapter as well wasn't it?

I played through nearly all the iterations. I seem to remember 92 being good also. As soon as the slapshots were introduced that was it